Porn and Promises
by Penbee of Treewood
Summary: The smile, the mask, the porn, and the promises... a collection of drabbles/ficlets about the Eternal Rivals, Gai and Kakashi.
1. Allergic Reactions

Many of these drabbles will be based upon the prompts in a book I recently purchased (_The 3am Epiphany_).

**Indirect Discourse Exercise**

**Title: **Allergic Reaction  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing: **Kakashi, Gai, Obito (no pairing)  
**Challenge:** Indirect discourse - No direct quotes used. No he said/she said.

**"Allergic Reaction" – Kakashi and Gai, pre-series**

Despite being Rivals of their own design, or perhaps only Gai's design, Kakashi and Gai really knew very little about one another other than by reputation and their infrequent meetings. They were, at best, impersonal, and it was a conscious decision on their part not to know much more than what mattered most.

So, on their first meeting after Team Minato was reborn, Gai officially introduced himself at last, bow and all, and waited in anxious silence for Kakashi to do the same. It was, Gai proclaimed, what one did when meeting teammates. The other boy, however, did not do formalities. He drank in Gai with one cold look and then turned away to contemplate the stone memorial instead. As Kakashi took his time tracing with his fingers the name of Uchiha Obito, Gai struggled for something to keep his Rival's attention, something they had in common other than challenges and their current teammates, and ended up recounting his own Chunin exam. He babbled.

But Kakashi was unimpressed and made that known; he had been present and knew quite well that Gai had fought Obito in the final section of the exam—the Uchiha and the green-clad boy had been teammates, along with Rin, for the duration of that exam, since Kakashi had already completed it years before. To shut down this line of conversation, the Copy Ninja coolly asked why Gai's original team hadn't taken the exam with him.

They did not want to, apparently and according to Gai, so he was hand-picked—a fact he was clearly proud of—by Minato-sensei himself to replace Kakashi. He replaced no one, Kakashi coldly informed him. Gai nodded, and said he understood his place.

After another awkward silence, he quietly told Kakashi how he had known Obito from the academy. They had sat next to each other during their last year. Obito liked to doodle on his homework and had difficulty, at first, throwing shuriken. He was a nice kid, though, and had seemed excited to have the great Copy-Nin for a teammate. Kakashi said nothing; he perhaps shrugged once in reply before he turned back to the memorial stone. Gai fell into silence.

It wasn't until nearly thirty minutes later, after Minato-sensei and Rin had come, spoken to them, and left for the ramen stand, that one of the two boys made another attempt to converse. Out of the empty air, Kakashi quietly asked if Obito was such a crybaby back then, too. Gai nodded, and recalled having once accidently punched Obito in the nose during a routine lesson in Taijutsu. Obito had cried for a whole ten minutes and Gai had to help take him to the infirmary. He had a bloody nose, and claimed to have had something in his eyes. Allergies, Gai said.

Kakashi teased that Obito was allergic to Gai…Gai, in turn, was too affronted to realize that the other had just made a joke. When Kakashi informed Gai that Obito didn't especially like this most recent rivals' challenge, Gai didn't understand. Kakashi touched his own masked nose and simply said that Obito wanted to cry.

With profuse apology, and a wee bit of skepticism, Gai promised not to punch his Rival in the nose again, for Obito's sake, since he was allergic to such things. Maybe Obito was grateful. If he was, Kakashi didn't say.


	2. On Legwarmers, Perhaps

Again, more prompted from that book I talked about. Enjoy!

**Clothes Exercise**

**Title: **On Legwarmers...Perhaps.  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing: **Gai  
**Challenge:** Clothes - Use a vivid piece of clothing to tell a story. Didn't quite follow that…

**"On Legwarmers, Perhaps." – Gai **

He owns a few dozen pair, much as anyone else might own multiple pairs of socks, but this is his favorite, imperfect as it may be. The frayed edges are worn with age, scarred by snags from the occasional thorn or branch while climbing through trees or underbrush in haste (and in the left, a gaping, irreparable hole still stands testament to a misstep). The color has dulled somewhat, paled out by the sun and dirt and multiple washings (scrubbed by hand and treated with harshest of chemicals until all traces of the day's activities bled out of every fiber and into the wash waters), and when compared to his others, this pair lacks the usual luster or vivacity; comparatively, beside his bright clothing, it appears dull, world-weary, almost lifeless.

Yet, he values this pair most. To lose it would be something tragic.

So when the tightly woven knit is coming undone, he sees fit to try to repair or save whatever possible; he ties off the unraveling strings like a surgeon making a tourniquet, stopping the problem before it can spread, even at the risk of losing a little in the process. But he knows that piece by unraveling piece, his treasure is coming apart at the seams. Still, he refuses to give up—that is just not his way—and though he often considers putting away his fragile plaything in a drawer, he cannot bring himself to shut anything away like a forgotten toy (he still remembers when they were both so new, children, really_…young but never innocent_…who would have realized they would both be fraying with age so soon?)… So he handles him with care…and hopes somehow that his tattered and torn friend does not unravel in his hands.


	3. Subtlety

A random scene. Ties loosely to "Subtext" perhaps.

**Title: **Subtlety  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing: **Gai, Kakashi, Naruto (possible Gai/Kakashi?)

**Challenge: **None

**Subtlety – Kakashi, Gai, Naruto**

With his chopsticks, Gai maneuvered the clumps of rice around his take-out box thoughtfully. "It does seem kind of ridiculous," he admitted after a moment, as if the idea had only just now occurred to him.

Kakashi glanced up slyly before turning another page. "That's because you find it impossible to be subtle."

Gai lost just about all of his composure and looked about two seconds away from declaring his rival to be so cool and modern...again. Instead, he recovered nicely with a hearty chuckle and then boastfully grinned. "Your sensei is just jealous that he cannot be so open with his emotions," Gai whispered theatrically. Naruto nodded along in agreement.

"In this business, it's a blessing--not a curse--to be stoic." Another page worth of _Icha Icha_ reading passed in blessedly golden silence and then Kakashi sighed, having sensed this silence meant his rival and student might both be in need of further explanation. Sure enough, they were staring at him, Gai poised between a bite and Naruto with a cascade of noodles dripping from his mouth. "Naruto, even to you all this should be obvious." The noodles disappeared into the genin's mouth in a loud gulp. "Bonds are easily exploited, so ninja who chose to fall in love have to hide the fact that they're together. That is why you didn't know about Asuma and Kurenai. It may be hard for you to understand, all things considered, but bold and outstanding are not the ways of the ninja; understated and stoic are."

Naruto snorted in disgust. "I just think it's dumb that everyone hides the way they feel about each other. It's not like it isn't _obvious _anyway." Gai nodded mutely, having already agreed on this. He looked up from his rice and back to the young ninja, his attention lost somewhere in deep thought. "And anyway--" Naruto continued after a loud slurp of take-out ramen, "if I were in love with someone, I'd want to say something, or at least show it. Everyone in Ero-Sanin's pervy books are always declaring their love and--"

"As much as it pains me to admit it," Kakashi interrupted in a dry, droll tone, "Jiraiya's books can hardly be taken as examples of real life. Besides," he added with a shrug, "public displays of affection are unnecessary."

"While one may not need such displays to affirm their love, sometimes it is nice to see a couple in a celebration of--" Before Gai could launch into another long-winded spiel that would inevitably culminate with the phrase 'joyful displays of romance' (or one of several other such flowery expressions and poetic, if a bit archaic, euphemisms he had in his repertoire), Kakashi saved his own ears with a snide interruption.

"Would you have really wanted to see Asuma groping Kurenai's ass at the Ichiraku?"

The chorus of objection (to how forward Kakashi's wording was...no one bothered to mention their thoughts on Asuma's hand in the vicinity of Kurenai's rear) was nearly in unison.

"You understand, though, don't you, Naruto?" there was a much more serious note to Kakashi's voice now, however. "Friendships, rivalries, teams--those are enough of a liability. A romantic interest is just one more precious person who could be used against you by an enemy. It's fine to care about people, to love, but making it public knowledge is dangerous. That's why we don't make stupid declarations or displays of affection."

"_We _don't?" the young man's eyebrows rose with his stressed word.

"Ninja don't," Kakashi calmly corrected. "'_We_' being ninja--specifically ninja in love."

"_We. _Makes you part of that group, doesn't it, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Naruto, don't be a smart-ass." With that hardly-brilliant comeback, Kakashi turned back to his book.

"Hey, you were the one who said it, sensei." Thinking himself quite clever, Naruto nudged Gai's arm and grinned cheekily, only to find his enthusiasm was not shared. Quite the contrary. A serious expression marred the usually smiling face of Kakashi's rival, but before Naruto could quite place the deep emotion that those dark eyes betrayed, the cloud had passed and Gai laughed and congratulated Naruto while reminding Kakashi of that wise adage: _'say what you mean and mean what you say.' _Kakashi plainly ignored him.


	4. Subtext

A random scene. Ties loosely to "Subtlety" perhaps.

**Title: **Subtext  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing: **Gai, Kakashi (possible Gai/Kakashi?)

**Challenge: **None

**Subtext – Kakashi, Gai**

Consulting his page over the shot of sake, Kakashi wryly shook his head and downed the tiny cupful. "The ideas Jiraiya puts in his head." The hypocritical tsk-tsk went unnoticed by his drinking partner who, in keeping with tonight's challenge, was busy with his own shot. Kakashi waited until Gai had finished and was reclining comfortably in his chair, before he added deviously, "Though I'm sure _Lee _didn't help the matter."

Gai's response was slowed ever-so-slightly by the onset of intoxication, and he mostly missed that Kakashi was setting him up. "What _about _Lee?" Kakashi purposefully remained silent behind his lurid orange book-cover. Now Gai sensed that he had been baited into a corner. But he was a curious man, and especially so when it came to matters concerning his favorite student. He leaned forward across the table and pushed down his rival's book so that he could squint up at that masked face. "When did you speak with Lee?"

"Yesterday," the Copy-Nin replied with easy poise. Those bushy brows raised in question, demanding he explain. "When you were late for practice. He asked if I had been keeping you."

"_Keeping _me?" Despite some confusion, Gai's voice rang with fear that a euphemism for something perverse was hidden in that phrase.

"Holding you up." A pause. Their eyes met and Kakashi again reconsidered his wording to something that implied a less troublesome train of thought. "Stalling you. With one of our challenges."

"Oh. I see," Gai answered rather slowly and carefully as he sat back in his chair, pondering this new development with a look of disturbed concern on his face. "Why would Naruto get ideas from that?" Kakashi took another shot of sake through his mask and pointedly missed the line of questioning. For just a minute, Gai gave him the benefit of doubt and waited for a response, even going so far as to meet the challenge of another shot and up the ante; but he knew Kakashi had the irksome habit of feigning ignorance just to avoid answering. He called the bluff. "I asked you a question."

"I'm sorry. I thought it was rhetorical."

"What did you say to Lee?" There was an edge of warning to his voice.

"I told him that you and I had a wrestling challenge that morning," Kakashi answered, waving his hand dismissively, "and that you might be a little late and a little sore because of it. But I assure you," he added pleasantly, grinning through the mask, "any impure thoughts were Lee's alone. I didn't imply anything."

Mask or no, it was hard to miss that Cheshire grin that turned Kakashi's usually sleepy-lidded eye into a happy crescent.

"No, of course not." Sarcasm sounded odd on Gai. "Who is lacking in subtly now, my rival?"

"It's not my fault everyone in Konoha is a pervert."

"My little Lee included?"

"Lee especially."


	5. Rainy Day

A flashback scene originally for an unfinished fanfic. Nearly a year and a half old now.

**Title:** Rainy Day (a short flashback)  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing:** Gai, Kakashi (possible hints of Kakashi/Gai)

**Rainy Day (_a flashback_)**

Kakashi stopped at the end of the footbridge and assessed his shivering, soaked rival. Wet would have been a good look for Gai, whose hair was messed up and sticking in funny angles and whose normally clingy costume was positively a second skin now. The only trouble was, it was windy and cold today, and Gai had been standing out here for some time, by the looks of him. His lips and skin were turning a light tint of purple.

A drop of water slipped from the tips of Gai's bangs and down his nose. Above, the clouds threatened to downpour again, yet the Green Beast remained rooted stubbornly where he was. Beneath his mask, Kakashi smirked. "Did it rain?"

"Y-yes." Gai shivered and his teeth chattered as he replied, "And y-you are l-late a-again, my r-rival."

"I didn't know I had an appointment," Kakashi answered without the slightest hint of interest in the conversation.

"Y-you d-didn't. I," Gai looked away with a blush, "ex-expected you to p-pass h-here earlier."

"Hm. I got distracted." Kakashi turned the page and tried to ignore the irked feeling that came every time his rival proved the Copy-nin's routine was predictable—at least for Gai. "Anyway, I'm here now. What did you want me for? A challenge?" Gai nodded, still shivering uncontrollably. "Well, it's my turn to name the challenge, right?"

"T-that's correct, y-yes."

Pretending to think about it, Kakashi continued to read the rest of the current page. Finally, he asked, "Do you like hot chocolate, Gai?"

His rival gave Kakashi a confused look. "I pre-" He sneezed. "-fer t-tea."

"Right. Well, I like hot cocoa better, so for today's challenge, we're going to see who can drink the most hot chocolate."

"We'll burn our tongues," Gai replied, seeming to be getting a hold over his shivers at last.

Kakashi shrugged. "What's a challenge without an element of danger?"


	6. Observations

**Title: **Observation  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing: **Iruka, Gai, Kakashi (possible Gai/Kakashi?)

**Challenge: **None

**Observation – Iruka, Kakashi, Gai**

Iruka's chair wheeled across the room and stopped, curiously, just before the end of a bookshelf. Leaning back until the backrest tilted just enough, he peered around the edge.

_There it was. What Izumo and Kotetsu were talking about..._

The way Gai was leaning, putting an edge on his height that, despite the near exactness of his and his rival's heights, made him almost tower.

The way Kakashi shrugged, playfully, _coyly?_--Iruka considered the word a second--and how his smile quirked beneath the mask, visible only when the light caught the fabric just so.

The way Gai's brow arched at something particularly interesting Kakashi said, and his smile didn't quite look as much friendly as promising.

And Kakashi took a step closer, just a few centimeters more before he was into Gai's personal space...

"We're being watched," Gai said, looking a tad smug as he glanced over his shoulder towards the bookshelf. Iruka remained still.

"It took you this long to realize?" Kakashi replied coolly, with a confidence well honed.

And then Gai spazzed, his arms flailed a little, Kakashi took a step back to avoid being hit and relaxed into a slump, the effect was ruined, and Iruka wondered if he had seen anything there, really, at all.


	7. Mnemophobia

Been a while, hasn't it? ^^ Oops.

**Title:** Mnemophobia  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing:** Gai, Kakashi (hinted Gai/Kakashi)

**Challenge:** One-Sentence Prompt from Naruto_Meme

**Mnemophobia** – Kakashi, Gai

There are certain actions, places, phrases that Gai has discovered are off limits—a friendly ruffle of Kakashi's hair is a reminder of Minato-Sensei, the smell of the Hatake House is a reminder of Sakumo's life (and death), and 'crybaby' will always be Obito—and he finds himself in a constant dance around his Rival's memories and the paralyzing fear that accompanies them; sometimes Gai is haunted by his own fear of the future and of a time when memories of _Gai_—the scent of him on a pillow, the color green, his favorite training field—will be among the ghosts that terrorize Kakashi in the quiet and lonely spaces of the day.


	8. Freedom of Submission

**Title:** Freedom of Submission  
**Rating:** PG-13?  
**Characters/Pairing:** Gai, Kakashi (Gai/Kakashi)

**Challenge:** One-Sentence Prompt (Dom/Sub) from Naruto_Meme For Kuri, my Kakashi braintwin who made the prompt.

_(And also for everyone there keeping the Gai and Kakashi ficlets coming! It's thrilling to watch this meme get filled! Thank you all for the fun times!)_

**Freedom of Submission** – Kakashi, Gai

He always pressured himself to be a brilliant leader and a genius rival, to make the right decisions and to save everyone-but the exhausted and world-weary man who could have been Hokage is checked at the door of his apartment and, here, as Gai orders him to his knees, stripping off the weight of the world along with his clothing and holding his short leash taut, Kakashi embraces the freedom and security of a man bound by obedience to rules and restrictions.


	9. If Only Sex Was Sacred

I am a little embarrassed that I was the one who wrote this. I don't know why; maybe because it did get off prompt.

**Title:** If Only Sex Was Sacred

**Rating:** PG-13?/R?

**Characters/Pairing:** Gai, Kakashi (Gai/Kakashi)

**Challenge:** One-Sentence Prompt (Size).

**If Only Sex Was Sacred** – Kakashi, Gai

It's not the size of Gai's very generous package but the size of the Green Beast's caring, Youthful, and presumably-romantic heart that makes Kakashi reconsider this mistake, even though it might be too late to protest now that Gai has him bent double over the desk, pants pooled at their ankles, with Kakashi's rear flush with Gai's hips; now, if only sex was sacred or an Eternal Rivalry was not, none of this would have to become a confusing and heartbreaking problem later.

(Afterward, though, Kakashi gives up (in?) and decides he's too sore to worry about explaining to Gai why having sex doesn't automatically mean they'll be together forever; after all, they already have the title of Eternal Rivals for that.)


	10. Icky Sticky

**Title:** Icky Sticky  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairing:** Gai, Kakashi, Iruka

**Challenge:** One-Sentence Prompt (Kakashi x Anyone, Sticky) from Naruto_Meme

**Icky Sticky** – Kakashi, Gai, Iruka

Looking like a fiery, pissed-off, half-plucked chicken, Gai fumed and shook his fist after the fleeing ponytail as Kakashi busied himself trying to detach from his raging Rival (to no avail); he hoped no one caught that scar-nosed prankster brat before he and Gai did, because (forget the humiliation, the bowl-cut, the spandex, or Kakashi's own hair) the kid was going to pay for subjecting Kakashi's newest porn novel to its feathery, gluey demise.


End file.
